


and i heard your voice

by anightingale



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Gen, Laurel getting the treatment she deserves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-12
Updated: 2017-01-12
Packaged: 2018-09-16 22:31:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9292274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anightingale/pseuds/anightingale
Summary: Set sometime during early season 4. Laurel, tracking down a lead on the Ghosts, winds up in Central City and ends up discovering that she is a metahuman.





	

**Author's Note:**

> And I heard your voice  
> As clear as day  
> And you told me I should concentrate  
> It was all so strange  
> And so surreal  
> That a ghost should be so practical  
> Only if for a night
> 
> — Only If For A Night, Florence + The Machine

“Any luck, Black Canary?” Speedy’s voice came over Laurel’s comm link, sounding hopeful yet fed up at the same time.

“None,” Laurel replied regretfully, listening to Thea sigh in response.

“We’ve been at this for _hours_ ,” Thea grumbled, and Laurel leapt off the building she’d been perched on, landing and rolling once hitting the pavement. “It’s almost like the bad guys don’t want to be found.”

Laurel cracked a grin at that, stalking around the corner to where she had stashed her motorbike. There was nothing more that could be done where she was; and by the sounds of it, Thea was having the same problem. “I think we can stop for the night,” Laurel said quietly to Thea. “There’s clearly nothing going on at the moment, and we won’t be much use to Green Arrow if we don’t get some sleep.”

Thea sighed over the comms again, sounding even more fed up than before. “Fine.”

“You know, you’re really living up to the grouchy teenager stereotype right now,” Laurel murmured to her friend, casting her gaze around the dark street, sensing that something was out of place. “Meet me at the hideout, Speedy. We’ll go get some food afterwards. That ought to cheer you up.”

“Very funny,” Thea replied sarcastically, and Laurel could almost hear her roll her eyes. “But okay. See you soon, yeah?”

“Yes,” Laurel confirmed, switching her comm off and swinging onto her bike. She couldn’t explain it, but it felt as though she were not alone. Looking around warily, she leaned forward to switch on her bike, when she spotted them.

 _Finally,_ she thought, pulling her hand quickly back from the ignition. She couldn’t tell if they were Ghosts from this distance, but she got off her bike, slower this time, running forward on silent feet to peer around the wall her bike was against.

There were four of them, she counted quickly, straining her ears to hear what they were talking about. It was the first sighting of potential Ghosts in days, she realised with something akin to relief. She’d almost believed they had simply disappeared off the face of the Earth, but then what would she tell Oliver? She and Thea had nothing to show for their efforts other than that the trail had gone cold in Central City.

Standing straighter, she clenched her fists as she saw the four potential Ghosts drag a young woman and young man out of the white van they had all just exited. Even if they were not Ghosts, this was not something she could ignore. Assessing the situation, Laurel noted the four assault rifles they carried, but the ease with which they did. They were relaxed, too relaxed, believing that they were free to do as they pleased.

How wrong they were, Laurel thought darkly, as she pushed out from behind the wall, slipping into the shadow of the building next to her. She could feel her muscles tensing in anticipation, her heart beating faster in her chest, as she slunk closer and closer to the four men. They were exceptionally unobservant, she noted with a frown, as she managed to pull herself up a building down the street that would allow her to jump across to the other side. _Easy,_ she thought, falling and rolling again to avoid hurting herself. This was what she lived for, this feeling—the feeling of the chase.

Running now, leaping from roof to roof, Laurel came to stand directly above the four men. She knelt down, staring as intently as she could from the closer distance, finally able to make out the insignias of the white honeycombs on their chests that signalled them to be H.I.V.E. agents.

They spoke quietly, but Laurel now did not need to hear exactly what they said. Even if they were all brainwashed, they had to be taken out.

She took a deep breath, steeling herself, and jumped off the building, landing heavily on top of the white van.

“What the—?” One of the Ghosts said, at the same time as another shouted, “It’s Black Canary!”

 _Indeed,_ Laurel agreed, planting her feet and opening her mouth, feeling her sonic scream leaving her in loud, powerful waves. She watched with satisfaction as each of the men dropped their weapons, bringing their hands up to cover their ears to block the terrible sound, which only caused her to scream louder.

Letting the cry fade away slowly, Laurel jumped down from the van’s roof, immediately aiming a solid punch at the closest Ghost’s head, able to take him down easily in his pain. The second went down in much the same way, and Laurel spun to find the third and fourth Ghosts scrambling to pick up their rifles.

“Don’t even think about it,” Laurel threatened, watching them freeze, but then hurry to pick them up anyway.

Something spread through Laurel at that moment, something she’d never felt before—it felt like the power her collar gave her, except not. Something different. Stronger. She stalked forward and opened her mouth, letting her scream rip out of her throat like it never had before, watching the two men fly backwards and hit the brick wall behind them, one of them being knocked out instantly and the other falling to his knees before her, grimacing in pain.

Laurel felt strange. That Canary Cry had felt more focused, like it was coming from—from _her,_ not from her collar. But that was ridiculous. She was simply in the moment, she reasoned with herself, even as she came to stand before the final Ghost. He stared up at her from behind his mask, his jaw set firmly. _Brave until the very end, these Ghosts,_ Laurel thought wryly, staring down at him in turn.

“What are you doing in Central City?” She demanded of him, knowing he would stay put. Everyone was terrified of her Cry, she had come to realise. He had nowhere he could go.

He stayed silent, his mouth shut.

“Why did you leave Star City? What does Darhk want you to do?” She continued, and when he remained quiet, she reached up and touched the comm in her ear, switching it on, annoyed. “Speedy. Come to my coordinates, I’ve found the Ghosts.”

Thea replied, sounding alarmed, asking if she was okay, but Laurel had already turned the volume down, her attention back on the Ghost before her. She still felt weird. Whatever that Cry had done to her was making her whole body thrum with…with _power._ Shaking herself, she glared back down at the silent man.

“If you’re not going to talk to me, maybe you’ll talk to the Green Arrow,” Laurel warned.

The Ghost’s eyes narrowed at her, still staring at her defiantly. As she watched, he moved his mouth peculiarly, and before Laurel could understand what was happening, the Ghost fell over, his eyes rolling, white froth foaming out of his mouth. She gasped, her hands coming up, but there was nothing she could do. He was dead.

Laurel placed her hands on her hips and looked away, frowning unhappily. This had happened before, back in Star City—these Ghosts really didn’t seem to care what happened to them. _What the hell does Darhk have on you guys?_ She thought, grimacing as she chanced a look down at him again.

She turned her head quickly to the side when she heard something move, and hurrying over to find the source, found the young man and woman crouching behind the van, clutching each other.

“Hey,” Laurel said softly, crouching next to them. “It’s okay. They can’t hurt you anymore.”

The young woman blinked at her, while the man peered around the corner to see the four men on the floor.

“They’re…dead? All of them?” He asked, his gaze flicking back to Laurel in wonder.

Laurel shook her head. “No, only one of them is dead. They have these pills in their teeth that they can take if…well, that’s not important. What’s important is that you are safe. My partner and I are going to get these guys to Star City, to the Green Arrow. You're free to go home.”

“Home,” the woman mumbled, still staring at Laurel. “You’re sure they won’t come after us?”

“I promise,” Laurel nodded gently. “What did they want you for in the first place?”

“They wanted us for something called Genesis,” the man shrugged. “Recruitment, or something. I don’t really know. They grabbed us as we were walking home.”

Laurel heard the sound of a motorbike coming down the street, and stood, helping the two people before her up. She turned just as Thea pulled up, swinging off her bike and instantly noticing the four Ghosts sprawled out on the ground.

“Speedy, over here,” Laurel called to her, and Thea looked up, walking over to join her by the van.

“Black Canary,” Thea said, her voice filled with relief. “You shouldn’t do that to me, I didn’t know what I was going to be running into when I got here.”

“Sorry,” she said sincerely, gesturing to the man and woman. “These two were hostages, but they know nothing that we need. Three of the Ghosts are simply unconscious. We can get them to Star City without them trying to kill themselves, I think—if you still have tranq arrows?”

“Yeah,” Thea nodded, reaching up and pulling a couple out of her quiver. “I’ll go deal with them.”

While Thea went to do just that, Laurel turned back to the two people next to her. They weren’t as shaken up as they had been when she first found them, she realised with relief. “Do you need me to call anyone?” She asked, still gentle. They shook their heads.

“We live only a couple of blocks over,” the woman murmured, staring up at the man beside her. “We can walk.”

“You’re sure?” Laurel frowned. “It’s no trouble if you need an escort.”

“We’ll be okay,” the man nodded, assuring her. “There are streetlights down there, regular traffic too. We'll be okay.”

“Thank you _so much,_ miss,” the woman said, coming forward to clutch Laurel’s gloved hands, as the two of them turned and made their way carefully past the Ghosts. Laurel followed after them, her arms crossed over her chest, watching until they made it to the end of the street and disappeared onto the busier main road.

Sighing, she turned to Thea, who was tapping away at her phone, presumably letting Oliver know that they’d found the Ghosts. The three men were tied up together, the fourth simply having being placed in the back of the van. Laurel caught the glint of keys on one of the man’s belts, and reached forward, unclipping it.

“Do you think they came here simply to throw us off?” Thea asked quietly, now that they were alone again. “I don’t understand what they were doing.”

“Me neither,” Laurel replied, moving back so Thea could close the van doors. “That man said they wanted them for recruitment for something called _Genesis._ I hope Oliver knows what that is,” she pursed her lips. “I hate not knowing what’s going on with these guys.”

“Same,” Thea murmured, thinking. “We’re going to need to take these guys somewhere close,” she said, a small frown on her face. “I'm not positive that the tranquilliser will last the entire trip back to Star City.”

 _Great,_ Laurel thought, but then realised that was totally fine. “We could take them to Cisco and Barry,” She replied, looking up at the night sky. It wasn’t terribly late; a quick look at Thea’s phone said it was just about midnight. “They should still be at S.T.A.R. Labs, right?”

“Let us hope,” Thea nodded. “We can leave our bikes here and come back for them tomorrow,” she said, as she walked forward to climb into the van. "Isn't it good to know The Flash?"

Laurel half-smiled, walking around to the other side and climbing up into the van, fingering her collar once she got into her seat. She tried to push the thoughts out of her mind that told her something was wrong, but couldn't. Something had happened to her voice.

* * *

“Laurel Lance? Thea Queen?” Barry asked, surprised, as Black Canary and Speedy wandered into the Cortex, in full gear. “Why—what are you guys doing here? Is Oliver okay?”

“Nice to see you too, Barry,” Laurel grinned, walking further into the room as Thea quickly explained the situation. Caitlin and Cisco, who also looked surprised to see them, hurried over to the lab and returned to hand Thea several vials.

"We need this more than you'd think," Caitlin explained to Thea, as she clutched them tightly to her chest, not wanting to drop them. "It helps to keep metas down, too."

"Moving on to bigger and better things, the Black Canary is here!" Cisco clapped, staring at Laurel, the rest of them nearly able to see actual hearts in his eyes as he walked forward to hug her. Laurel shook her head, exasperated, but hugged him back.

"And Speedy," Thea mumbled, affronted, and Caitlin touched her arm, a small smirk on her face.

"Cisco is a _major_ fanboy for her," Caitlin murmured, and Thea suddenly laughed.

"It's good to see you," Barry agreed, walking over to hug Laurel, too, when a sharp beeping sound came from the silver watch he was wearing. He looked down at it as he pulled back from Laurel, frowning. Laurel stared down at it too, waiting for Barry to explain what it was, when he looked up at her in confusion.

“Barry?” Caitlin asked, as he and Cisco shared a look. “What is it?”

“This is a watch from Earth-2,” Barry explained to them, pointing at his wrist. “I...took it from the police station there. Iris had one, as did nearly every person we came across while we were there,” he looked over at Cisco for confirmation.

“The metahuman alert app,” Cisco murmured, turning to stare at Laurel curiously then. “It can’t be.”

“Maybe it’s a fluke,” Barry agreed. “It went off when—when Iris kissed me, and she let it slide without even thinking about it.”

“So clearly this can happen,” Cisco nodded, but he still was studying the bewildered Laurel, her arms coming up to cross her arms over her chest defensively.

“Yes,” Barry nodded too, but he also was focused on Laurel.

“Can one of you please tell me why you’re staring at me like I just grew another head?” Laurel asked, utterly confused. “What is a metahuman alert app?”

Barry lifted up his watch at the same time as Cisco pointed at it. “This, Laurel. It lets the wearer know when a metahuman is around them. I’ve been playing with it since we got back from Earth-2, so that it doesn’t go off every time I move my hand, and I finally changed it to what I think is a good setting, when it goes off while I hug you?”

“Could just be a fluke,” Cisco repeated, already walking away. “But maybe we’d better check, just in case.”

“Just in case,” Barry hurried after his friend, the two of them grabbing each of Caitlin’s hands as they passed her and pulling her into the lab next to the Cortex. “Laurel, please follow us!”

Laurel turned and looked at Thea as she dutifully headed after the three scientists, who shrugged, not really knowing what was going on either.

As they bustled around her, Laurel sank into a chair, watching quietly as Caitlin finally seemed to understand what was happening and move to actively help Cisco and Barry.

Laurel still didn’t understand what was happening, but her mind was going back to the power of her scream when fighting the Ghosts, and how different it had made her feel. If they were testing her for the metahuman gene—she managed to pick up in amongst the scientific babble she couldn’t understand—was it possible that that had been a part of that?

 _No way,_ Laurel thought, shaking her head quickly. She wasn’t a metahuman. Nobody else in her family had displayed any strange powers, so why would she? Her powers came from a collar Cisco had designed for her. That was it. She'd just been angrier than usual, or something.

But as the tests dragged on, and the results started to come in, it appeared that that was just what she had. She had the metahuman gene. They tested and retested her, the three of them also in disbelief.

“Well,” Cisco finally said, as the four of them—and then five, as Thea silently moved into the room to watch—stared at the test results on the screen. “Black Canary is a meta.”

 _Black Canary is a meta,_ Laurel stared unblinking at the screen, the big green tick burning itself into her brain. _I’m a metahuman._

Barry turned to look at her gently, as if he’d read her mind, reaching out and placing a hand on her black leather-clad shoulder, giving it a squeeze. “It’s okay, Laurel. We’ll help you through this.”

“It’s just so interesting,” Cisco was saying, now staring at Laurel as if she were the most fascinating person on the planet. “The Black Canary! A metahuman! No wonder the collar I made for you works so well, seriously. I mean, I’m amazing, but I’m not _that_ amazing.” He winked quickly at her in the midst of his ramblings. “I’d only admit that for you, Laurel.”

Laurel rolled her eyes, but smiled good-naturedly. “I’m a metahuman,” she said out loud, testing it. It sounded strange to her, and she caught Thea’s eye. Thea was looking at her with nothing but curiousity. “It explains a lot.”

“Does it?” Caitlin asked, frowning.

“Out there, tonight,” Laurel began slowly, “I used the Canary Cry on a couple of soldiers, but it _felt_ different. I’d never felt that way before, like it had come from _me_ and not from the collar, and then that feeling stayed with me. I’ve been feeling weird ever since.”

“The collar I made for you is linked specifically to your vocal chords,” Cisco explained as he stared down at it around her neck. “But the power you were able to channel through it was something even I hadn’t anticipated. And if you say that even that amount of power was amplified tonight, well, seeing this—” he gestured to the screen, “explains _so much_.”

Laurel stared at the green tick on the screen before her again. The green tick which said that she was a metahuman, that her mother had the gene, and that only she had inherited it. Her mother, who either had no idea, or had been keeping this a secret from her all these years.

Laurel had been in Central City visiting her mother when the Particle Accelerator exploded; it had simply taken a while before her power had manifested itself. She would have to call her mother and see if the same had happened to her, or if the gene still lay dormant.

 _I’m a metahuman,_ Laurel thought again, staring down at herself, the black leather of her gear staring back at her. She felt the weight she'd had on her shoulders for months as the Black Canary lifting slowly. In that moment, in S.T.A.R. Labs, she didn’t feel as though she were doing this only for her sister anymore. This inherent power showed her that she had always been destined for greatness. Every time anyone around her told her she couldn’t do this, any time she was doubted, she now had this in front of her. This result, that said she didn't need to doubt herself, that she'd always had this in her.

“Your name is already perfect, by the way,” Cisco murmured, interrupting Laurel’s thoughts as he tapped his chin thoughtfully with his finger, while Barry laughed at his friend’s incessant need to name every metahuman he came across. _“Black Canary.”_

**Author's Note:**

> I was listening to Only If For A Night when the idea for this popped into my head. I still maintain that Laurel should have been in Central City when the Particle Accelerator explosion happened, because then even if they had never used it on Arrow, we would all know that her gene had been activated. 
> 
> Ugh. I miss Laurel so much, guys. Here's to hoping for more Laurel cameos this year :-(


End file.
